The invention relates to improvements in shredders, in particular to the manner in which the shredded material is handled in shredders of the kind intended for the shredding of paper and the like, and generally used in offices.
Shredders have been known for many years, and are used to shred documents such that they are safely disposed of and cannot be readily reconstructed. Originally shredders simply cut the paper into long strips, but more recently they have in general also cross cut those strips into short lengths. This has two main advantages, the first is that reconstruction of the documents is made much more difficult, and secondly the waste is less bulky as the long strips tended to act like springs, and do not naturally compact, whereas shorter pieces do not suffer from this problem to the same extent.
One problem with shredders is how often the waste container needs to be emptied. The shredding mechanism of most shredders will cut off when the waste in the container builds up underneath the shredding mechanism. In most shredders without any form of compaction mechanism, particularly those which do not cross-cut, this happens often and the user then has to open the container and push the waste material down to compress it before they can continue their shredding. In some shredders, particularly those which do not cross-cut, the waste may be crinkled as it leaves the shredding mechanism to reduce its springiness, and in these cases the problem should occur less often. However, it is clearly desirable to be able to operate a shredder for as long as possible without having to either compact the waste by hand, or empty the waste container.
It is an object of the present invention to address the above described problem.